


Brosca

by aerynlallaboso



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, duncan chose another warden au etc, this was 'planned' as a series but here we are
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-17
Updated: 2014-08-17
Packaged: 2018-02-13 15:11:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2155185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aerynlallaboso/pseuds/aerynlallaboso
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I bet they stop your meals before mine."</p><p>"Why?"</p><p>"Hey, you killed Beraht. You embarrassed every caste by beating their champions single-handedly. I just watched."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brosca

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted 28/6/13 @ tumblr

"I bet they stop your meals before mine."

"Why?"

"Hey, you killed Beraht. You embarrassed every caste by beating their champions single-handedly. I just watched."

"You helped kill Beraht, if you remember. Besides, Jarvia doesn’t care about him. So what they were sleeping together? She’s wanted to take over for ages."

"That isn’t the point."

"Fine. I can survive without their filthy food anyway."

"I think you’d do it out of guts."

"I bet you."

"Uh, I think I’ll pass. Don’t have anything to bet."

"I bet you a tumble I can survive until they kill me. Or someone kills Jarvia."

"I don’t think you’ll be in good enough condition for me to collect, if we do survive."

"Wait and see, Leske."

——-

Through the next week, they talk through the wall in hushed voices. The hunger doesn’t bother them - they’re used to it, living on the streets. Casteless survive on coppers trodden into the ground by the boots of their betters, barely enough to feed a single mouth let alone the abandoned families of Dust Town.

Mainly it’s the silence that gets both of them when they try to sleep at night: no animals, no beggars coughing, no children or mothers crying. Leske’s home is right beside an alley which is a prime spot for Carta shankings, so it doesn’t feel right to curl up without the death gurgle of an unfortunate merchant lulling him to sleep.

A filthy, hard-faced Carta thug (is there any other kind?) delivers them their food each morning. Leske likes to thank him with a malicious glint in his eye, as if to say, “I’ll get you when I’m outta here.” Brosca, of course, prefers to do it more directly, snatching her morsels out of the dwarf’s hands and yelling that she’ll gut him like a nug. The Carta thug just smiles. Leske takes it as a bad sign.

Sure enough, the eighth morning in their cells, the battered dwarf plods into the holding cavern and shoves a handful of bread and stripped meat through Leske’s bars. After Leske takes them, he turns to Brosca’s cell and holds out his other hand, with her ration in it. He grins and lets the food fall to the stone, then crushes it with his foot.

Leske can see Brosca’s face tighten. “You nug-fucking deep-stalker!” she roars. “I’ll rip your face off and eat that instead!”

The thug laughs. Brosca snarls at him, but he wipes his hand on his leather armour and leaves.

"You’ve got a death wish, salroka," Leske says. "If you’d stayed quiet we might have gotten out of this alive."

She mumbles something he can’t hear. Then, louder, “I’m sorry.”

He shrugs. “Working for Beraht was never going to end well. We were just trying to survive.”

The motto of the casteless. See how far that got us, he thinks.

——-

After that, there’s no more food for Brosca. Occasionally the thug will do his taunt again, but Leske guesses he’s more startled by Brosca’s fierce growling than he lets on.

She’s getting weaker by the day. So is he, but he’s not trying to hide it. Every time they talk, he can imagine the hunger pangs stabbing through her belly, dragging her body down to the cell floor to dim the pain with freezing stone. Her voice never betrays any of it.

“Do you ever wonder what would’ve happened if we’d gotten away with it?” he asks her on the thirteenth evening. Brosca laughs.

“You mean if that drunken nug-humper Everd hadn’t walked in?”

“Exactly.” He leans back and looks up at the ceiling. “Maybe you’d have won the Proving properly. They give you your money, Beraht’s happy, we go on living.”

“I did win the Proving properly,” Brosca says sulkily. “Rubbed it in those warrior castes’ faces.”

Leske sighs. “Alright, then. Maybe one of the nobles would have kidnapped you to fight in his secret legion of warriors. The really good ones, who get tales told about them.”

He hears a thud against the wall and guesses she’s slumped against it in exhaustion. “You don’t have to make it sound so unlikely, Leske.”

It’s his turn to laugh. “I guess not. But we’re stuck here instead.”

“Yeah. Stuck dying on Jarvia’s schedule.” Brosca yawns. “I’m gonna win that bet, salroka.”

He grins. “You want to bet?”

She doesn’t answer. It’s becoming more common lately – she’ll fall asleep in the middle of their talks. He’s tired himself. Expecting death and not being given it immediately puts a strain on one’s nerves. And today, the dwarf who brings them food didn’t come at all.

When morning comes, Leske’s sitting hunched in a corner, chewing on the inside of his cheek to fight down his stomach’s rumblings. He’s been trying to keep awake; guarding against a knife in the dark.

Their dirty-faced provider strolls in with a stone bowl filled with grimy water. He sweeps his eyes over the two cells, noting Leske, then grunts at Brosca. Or at least Leske thinks he does. He can’t see much into her cell; the shadows the thick bars cast obscure most of his view.

“So,” the other dwarf remarks. He hasn’t spoken before now, except to laugh. “The bitch lasted a while, didn’t she?”

“What are you talking about?” Leske says blearily.

The thug snorts. “She’s dead. Thank the Ancestors, I was gettin’ tired of that racket.”

“Dead?” He struggles into an upright position. “How?”

“During the night, I guess.” The dwarf slips the water bowl under his cell bars, gives him a horrible grin. “We’re taking bets on how long you’ll last.”

Leske doesn’t even have the energy to snap at the man. He mumbles something like, “Yeah,” and sits back against the wall. All his motivation to fight back came from Brosca, he realises, and now she’s dead, it’s gone with her.

——-

It’s past the twentieth day, he knows that much (twenty being the highest he can count to), when the Warden and his companions slaughter their way through the Carta’s hideout. Leske only hears shouting and steel on steel, occasionally the fiery hiss of traps triggering.

He wonders who’s coming; wonders if they’ll kill him. He does hope they put a dagger in Jarvia’s back, though. For Brosca, whose body is rotting where they left her – he can’t see it, but the smell is unmistakeable. He’s bitten his nails down to nothing trying to distract himself.

“Who’s that body?” the human asks, arms folded over fine metal like the nobles in Diamond Quarter all wear.

“A friend of mine starved to death,” Leske answers. “It was all over some stupid bet.”


End file.
